orthodox communists dedicated to Marxism, and the left were understood to
be in favour of liberal values and a capitalist system. The relativity must be
stressed, but the utility of the labels cannot be denied for this reason.
Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholicism, one of the largest of all world religious sects, and with
more adherents than any other Christian denomination, has in the past been
enormously important in Western politics. As the original faith of medieval
Europe the Roman Catholic Church was built deeply into the developing
political systems of theFirst World, and though the Reformation led to a
considerable diminution in its importance in those areas, mainly Britain and
Northern Europe, where Protestantism prevailed, the politics of countries
where the Counter-Reformation succeeded remain deeply imbued with
Roman Catholic influences. Latin America, settled by the most determined
of the Counter-Reformation states, Spain and Portugal, is almost entirely
Roman Catholic, and the church has frequently played a crucial role in the
unstable political systems of the region.
Although there can be no doubt that Roman Catholicism is politically most
influential, the nature and direction of its influence differs greatly as the actual
history of Roman Catholicism varies. In those societies (Latin America, Italy,
Poland and Ireland, for example) where it is unrivalled by Protestant or non-
Christian religions, the Church has often been closely allied either with
governing parties and classes, or has been the major opposition to governing
secular e ́lites. Elsewhere Roman Catholicism has tended to correlate with
social class and reinforce voting patterns. In the USA and the United King-
dom, for example, Roman Catholics have tended to be of lower social class,
and to have voted strongly for left-wing parties, although religionper sehas not
been the basis for socialcleavages. Yet in the Netherlands Roman Catholics
have been of great political importance as one of three basic political sectors
which cut across class lines, the others representing, respectively, the Protes-
tants and the ‘secular’ (basically socialist) sectors. Religious cleavages of this
form, however, tend to become less important over time. The proportion of
Roman Catholics voting for the Labour party in the UK is now not much
different from the proportion of members of the Church of England doing so,
while the Roman Catholic Church has more or less vanished as a political force
in French politics (seeMouvement Re ́publicaine Populaire), and in the
Netherlands the two Protestant parties have allied with the Roman Catholic
party to become a predominantly middle-class non-denominational Christian
party like the German Christian Democratic Union. In those countries where
Roman Catholicism is not only the dominant religion but also has special ties
with, or influence over, the state, Ireland being one of the most obvious cases,
Roman Catholicism